Nepal to become first country outside India to adopt UPI-based payment system

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Nepal will be the first country to adopt India's UPI system, which will play a pivotal role in transforming the digital economy of the neighbouring country, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said on Thursday.

NPCI International Payments Ltd (NIPL), the international arm of NPCI, has joined hands with Gateway Payments Service (GPS) and Manam Infotech to provide the services in Nepal. GPS is the authorised payment system operator in Nepal and Manam Infotech will deploy Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in that country.

The collaboration will serve the larger digital public good in Nepal and bolster interoperable real-time person-to-person (P2P) and person-to-merchant (P2M) transactions in the neighbouring country, NPCI said in a statement.

"Nepal shall be the first country outside of India to adopt UPI as the payments platform driving the digitalization of cash transactions and furthering the vision and objectives of the Nepal Government and Nepal Rastra Bank as the Central bank," it said.

This collaboration will enable the last-mile consumers in Nepal to reap the benefits of an open interoperable payments system driving immediate payment transfers between bank accounts and merchant payments in real-time. It will also enable the way forward for real-time cross-border P2P remittances between Nepal and India, NPCI said.

UPI service has created a significant positive impact in India in terms of the country's digital payment transformation, Rajesh Prasad Manandhar, CEO of GPS said. "We expect UPI in Nepal would play a pivotal role in transforming the digital economy of the country and dreams of building a less-cash society," he said.

In 2021, UPI enabled 3,900 crore financial transactions valuing USD 940 billion, which is equivalent to approximately 31 per cent of India's GDP.

"At NIPL, we are committed to transforming payments by taking our robust payments solutions to global markets and collaborating with local payment system operators. We are confident that this initiative will stand as a testimony to NIPL's technological capabilities and vision of scaling our unique offerings globally," Ritesh Shukla, CEO of NIPL said in the statement.

UPI's real-time payment infrastructure will help catalyze the process of financial inclusion in Nepal and will also create more opportunities for businesses, NPCI said. It will help modernize Nepal's digital payment infrastructure and bring the convenience of digital payments to citizens of Nepal.

"Manam has always been part of major digital transformation across the various regions of the world, we believe this partnership will eliminate all the barriers of payment transformation within Nepal and across the border thereby transforming the regional economy," Naga Babu Ramineni, Director of Manam said.

UPI is amongst the most successful real-time payments (RTP) systems globally, providing – simplicity, safety, and security in P2P and P2M transactions in India.

Nepal has a population of about 30 million (3 crore) with around 45 per cent banked. Mobile penetration of over 135 per cent with 65 per cent of the population using smartphones provides a bedrock for seamless replication of the digital revolution in India to be replicated in Nepal, NPCI said.

Over the next few months, all three companies will work closely together to deploy UPI in Nepal along with all the functionalities and features presently available in India.

NIPL, being an internationally focused subsidiary of NPCI, is looking to drive deep collaboration with overseas partners in the areas of UPI like deployment, cross-border remittance, acceptance, using indigenously developed technologies in digital payments, NCPI said.

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